The Legend of the Stones

Chapter One: Genesis

I screamed. 

You won’t often find me screaming. I wouldn’t call myself brave, because I’m not, but for some reason I just don’t scream when I’m scared. 

Instead, I freeze. 

When someone plays a joke, like putting their hands over my eyes, or throwing me over their shoulder – sure, I might let out a little yelp. Perhaps a small shriek that I let slip out of my lips on purpose, to give the joker a sense of satisfaction. So they can go around saying, “Hey. I pranked Lyv and actually scared her.”

I was never truthfully scared. But by giving them that little seed to make them feel like they’d accomplished something, I was able to make them smile. 

And that’s all I cared about. Because that was me. Always kind, soft, sweet and gentle. Not brave, but not scared easily. 

But when I am scared? 

As I said before – I freeze. But right now, I wasn’t freezing. I was moving, squirming, writhing in pain. 

I was in pain. 

So, I wasn’t brave, I wasn’t scared, and I wasn’t set in stone. 

But I was in pain. 

I let out another scream as my vision unclouded. 

I was in a room. It wasn’t a very nice room, actually. The walls were a horrible, pristine white, without a single blemish on them. There were numerous medical devices strewn around the floor, somehow managing to look completely messy and utterly neat all at the same time. 

I wrinkled my nose in disdain and focused on the people moving around me. There were several men and women wearing awkward, white clothing that shared an uncanny resemblance with a bedsheet. They were rushing around me, clicking buttons and shouting orders. 

I looked down at myself. I was on a bed, lying down flat. I lifted my head higher but still I could not see my feet – the sheet on my body covered everything, leaving awkward lumps along the way. 

Suddenly, all the people crowded around my legs. I moved my head, desperately trying to see what they were doing, but to no avail. I could feel them moving my body into different positions. What were they going to do? What was wrong with me? 

One of them turned and yelled at me to start. 

Start what? I wanted to yell back, but instead I just started screaming. 

Endless shrieks and squeals, cascading from my mouth. My lungs grappled for air, my rib cage feeling as though it was going to burst open into a million tiny pieces. 

I don’t know how long it went on. Maybe seconds, maybe days, maybe hours. I’m not sure where I found the oxygen to keep breathing and shrieking, but suddenly, just before I thought I was going to drop, it stopped. 

All the people started moving very quickly again and shuffled over to a corner of the room. I sat up but was immediately pushed back down again, and an oxygen mask placed over my mouth. 

During this whole ordeal, my hearing was masked, like I was listening to the world from inside a glass bottle, and my vision was constantly blurred. But once I took a few deep breaths from the oxygen mask, the whole world slammed back into focus. 

I shoved the mask away and winced at the sudden noise. I tried to sit up but for some reason, my muscles weren’t working. 

One of the people broke away from the crowd in the corner and walked over to me, mouthing some words.